New Year’s Resolution: Write More Letters!

 

Doing my part for USPS! Only one stamp left!
Time to purchase more.

Terrible, tragic news came from Denmark on December 30! The Danish postal service, 400 years old, is now kaput!  A hopeful note is sounded in the article you can read by following the link in the previous sentence, as well as the link within the link: “It seems like a slow-motion mistake; letter-writing is coming back into style, especially among young people sick of technology….” I should hope so! 

 

When I heard on NPR that Danes will no longer be able to mail letters, my heart almost froze, and I vowed then and there to write and send more letters in the coming year. I always have done—maybe not as often recently as in former years, but now I am doubly motivated, because I do not want to lose my beloved United States Postal Service! 

View from bank: Where is the bay?

On the morning of New Year’s Eve, Wednesday, a friend stuck his head in the door of Dog Ears Books to ask what on earth I was doing there, open on such a cold, blustery day. I told him I had to come to town, anyway, to collect my mail, always hopeful that I’ll find a friendly note in my p.o. box. He asked if my hopes had been rewarded, and I told him, yes, there was a holiday card from a friend, and the day before there had been two letters waiting for me. Hurrah!

 

View from inside bookstore

Also on December 30 I had a large family of customers who had decided to follow the Icelandic Christmas Eve tradition of exchanging books and then spending the evening reading them. Although late for Christmas Eve, they didn’t want to wait another year before getting started, so we had a wonderful time together on a cold, dreary winter day when I hadn’t expected to see a soul.

 

Still on the subject of mail and books, here's a reminder that, thanks to the foresight of Benjamin Franklin (and maybe a little self-interest on his part, too, since he was a printer by trade), the USPS offers a special rate for sending books, known generically now as media mail. It’s a wonderfully economical way to share books with family and friends. Please, however, do not include letters in your book package! Letters are first-class mail and need first-class postage, and I would not want to see book rate (the old name will always take precedence in my mind) vanish from mailing alternatives, having enjoyed it all my life. Magazines and newspapers cannot go at the media rate, either, as they contain advertising. Media mail is intended for educational purposes, a way of promoting national literacy.

 

Coincidentally, as one year passes into another, I find myself halfway through an epistolary novel set in 16^th-century Florence, Italy. Although the novel is written in French (and my French is rusty), it is easier to read than many modern French novels, perhaps because of the epistolary structure. My biggest challenge is keeping the many character/writers straight. Italian characters in a mystery novel written in French and set in the 16^th century = a quadruple challenge! Not that I ever figure out whodunit: I read mystery novels more for settings and characters.

 

On the car radio as I drove home one day in the last week of December, I heard part of a program where one person chooses a book to introduce to two other people, and I was immediately drawn by the discussion because the chosen book of the day was Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. It was interesting to hear how a trio of young people new to the book responded to a story I know practically by heart, how they interpreted the characters, and what themes they saw in the story.

Some people think Austen originally intended her second novel, P&P, to be composed entirely of letters, then changed her mind.

Re-reading her sister Jane's letters
strengthens Elizabeth's prejudice against Darcy.

As it is, there are nineteen letters in the book, all of them fairly long (with the exception of Mr. Bennett’s brief, wry response to a letter from a man his daughter Elizabeth had earlier refused to marry), and Mr. Darcy’s letter to Elizabeth is surely the longest, taking up almost the whole of Chapter 35. That letter, revealing as it does the character of the writer and of the other man Elizabeth had previously found more sympathetic, requires Lizzie to question her previous attitudes toward both. Arriving then back at her friend Charlotte’s house from her daily walk, she learns that she has missed a visit from Darcy’s cousin, but the cousin no longer holds any interest for Elizabeth, who can “think only of her letter,” that is, the letter from Mr. Darcy. Her head is filled with his words, and nothing else can hold her attention. Have you ever had that feeling?

 

(One member of my extended family detests epistolary novels. For me, they can be brilliant, or, perhaps more easily, trite and pedestrian, a lazy writer's shortcut, but certainly no one would accuse Austen of laziness. The quality of writing is separate from a story’s structure.)

 

When it comes to letters that arrive in my own post office box, all are welcome, and none is ever boring. Someone was thinking of me! If we lived only a few miles from one another, we could meet for coffee, go for a walk together, sit and “dream by the fire,” or play outdoors in the snow with my dog. When hundreds of miles separate us, each letter is a precious gift of the sender’s time given me. Priceless!

Envelopes not recycled yet

Mystery Poet Strikes Again

Collection of mysterious mail

It has been months since a mystery poem arrived in my post office box. The first one came in February, a second in April, and the third in June, seeming to set an every-other-month pattern. Then no more, and after a while I stopped expecting another. It’s a tribute to our local postmaster that I received these at all, as the address on them did not include a p.o. box number, the official requirement for delivery.

a beautiful old stamp

On Friday, November 30, the post office box held another piece of mail from the anonymous poet, another small piece of lined paper folded to become its own envelope, bearing various stamps, address and enclosed poem typed on a manual typewriter. The stamps this time are five in number: an 8-cent American flag stamp, 6-cent Leif Erikson, 15-cent coral reefs, 15-cent USA Olympics 1980, and—my favorite—a beautiful, deep blue, landscape format 3-cent commemorative depicting the arrival of Lafayette in America in 1777.

But it is the poem inside that is the real prize. 

an exquisite little poem

Previous poems were on the subjects snow, honey, and the firefly. This new one is titled “Tell Me.” It is so lovely it bears repeating:

Tell Me 

who does not dream 

what Night already knew 

how the willows laugh 

when Moon finds the cloud 

where Sun hid her pearls 

Winter Wednesday Postcard Promenade #5: Bits of History and a Challenge

It was hard to decide where to go today for the winter’s last postcard promenade, so many possibilities presenting themselves, and in the end, I went for history rather than geography. That is, rather than going to some top Michigan destination like Mackinac Island, today--not counting the greetings from my birthplace above, home of the team responsible for my mother’s love of baseball, the Aberdeen Pheasants--we’ll be looking at features of the cards other than what they illustrate. Most are in black and white or, in the case of the example below, sepia and white.



This card intrigued the bookseller in me. I had no idea that publishers’ publicity departments were advertising new titles with postcards back in one-cent stamp days, but here’s the evidence. The book, “with frontispiece in full colors” [sic] is available for only $1.50 net. You can put a stamp on the card and mail it for a penny to place your order or send the card in an envelope (for a little more postage) with your remittance. I wonder how many copies of The First Hundred Thousand were sold this way.

Look carefully at the next pair of black-and-white postcards. Can you tell which one is the real photo postcard (RPP), Moose River or Veteran’s [sic] Monuments? (I presume more than one veteran is being honored here.)




Moose River is the RPP. Your clue is the graininess in the closeup. I’ll post a better image of the monument here especially for Gerry, though, because I know how she is about veterans.


Here are some more soldiers, all lined up at Fort Sheridan, Illinois (going by the postmark).


“Dear Sis,” the writer has scrawled in pencil, “A picture of me, I marked it to be sure you could find me. Love Jim.” This card was postmarked (October 22, 1945) but mailed without a stamp, with the word “free” written over the “Place Stamp Here” box, a privilege of the military. I’ll show a closeup so you can see Jim a little better.


Doesn't he have a nice smile? His sister lived on Barlow Street in Traverse City.

I love this RPP from the Pioneer Village at Salem, Massachusetts, showing “Dug Outs, Saw Pit, and English Wigwams.” (English wigwams?) The bottom corner of the card is the second clue that this is an authentic RPP. Then on the back are the words “ACTUAL PHOTOGRAPH.”




Can you tell the difference between the next two? Look closely.



The sepia-tone view of the Virginia gorge is the RPP, printed on Kodak paper, as the back of the card indicates, while the Nova Scotia lighthouse with sailboat (Amy-Lynn! A card from Nova Scotia!) is printed from a photograph but is not itself an actual photograph.

A certain Miss Litchfield received many postcards from friends. One from Nova Scotia bears a 2-cent Canadian stamp and reads, “Hi Doris, I bet you were surprised to find me gone. Well here I am up in Parrsboro. I still have about two hundred and twenty-five miles to go. Glenda.”


Another friend mails Miss Litchfield a card in 1942 with a one-cent stamp showing the Statue of Liberty with the words “INDUSTRY AGRICULTURE FOR DEFENSE.” The writer was enjoying a vacation from serious matters, however: “Here I am enjoying fresh air, ocean bathing and lobster my favorite sea food. This afternoon I took a sun bath and now I am burning up!”

Maine has always been a popular vacation destination. Many of the postcards from Maine almost look like places in Michigan. Here’s a colorful one:



I find the back of this card interesting, too. Like the one from the publisher, this one has an advertising message. “GOOD FISHING” is to be had in Maine, and back in the days of penny postcards you could rent a family kitchenette on Lake Maranacook for only $20 a week from Mr. Charles Brown.

Now here’s the POSTCARD CHALLENGE. Of the three cards below, all RPPs, can you tell which one was developed on Devolite Peerless rather than Kodak Paper? Be the first with the right answer, and you win the card.




How’s that letter-writing commitment going, by the way? Does it seem like a long way to Memorial Day? If you’re having a particularly busy week, it wouldn’t be cheating to send a couple of postcards in place of a single letter. The cost of postcard stamps has risen over the years, but it’s still a bargain. The current polar bear stamps make me think of Grand Marais, Michigan. Go, Polar Bears!


And now, let’s hear it for the fast-approaching vernal equinox and the end of winter! Birds were singing in our farmyard at dawn. That's a sure sign.

Postal Holiday Writing Challenge

When I was growing up in Illinois, we schoolchildren had Lincoln’s birthday, February 12, as a holiday. Washington’s birthday, February 22--did we get that day off school, too? I honestly don't remember, but naturally our grade school classrooms were full of lessons about the Father of Our Country in February. Every state has a few holidays that other states don’t have, and Chicago and suburban schools still get the day off for the birthday of the Polish hero of the American Civil War, Casimir Pulaski, whom you can learn about here. No, he was never a president. I digressed, thinking about regional holiday differences in the U.S.

In 1971 President Richard Nixon decided we would have one national holiday to honor all American presidents. I suppose it makes some sense, as holidays could otherwise proliferate like the feast days of saints, but honoring “presidents” rather than Lincoln seems like rather a bowl of thin gruel to someone who grew up (though was not born) in the Land of Lincoln. And really, don’t we all believe, whether or not we would agree on a list, that some American presidents have been more deserving of honor than others? There’s potential for another digression, but I won’t take that particular side road today.



What does Presidents Day, or Presidents’ Day, if you prefer (but please, not President’s Day, the whole point being that it’s not just about one president!) mean to those not in a classroom? That’s what I’m really wondering. What does it mean, and what could it mean? Another day for big retail sales? When did that notion get started, anyway? “BIG WASHINGTON’S DAY SALE!” Somewhat bizarre, don’t you think? I never could understand it, much less get into it.

Here’s my proposal. Since this Monday is a holiday for all federal employees, the post office is closed, and there is no mail delivery—making this the perfect day to sit down and write a letter! Why? To give pleasure to someone you love and, at the same time, to salute and support the United States Postal System. I’m talking about tangible support, not just lip service. Go to the post office tomorrow, buy stamps and send mail!

Some Americans think we don’t need a government postal service and that all mail and shipping services should be privatized. I disagree. Mail service guaranteed to everyone in the country, at reasonable cost, is part of the bedrock of democracy, every bit as important as public education, in my book. As for the reliability of the post office, I have shipped books USPS since my career as a bookseller began in 1993, and never once has one of my book packages gone astray. Not once. I know other people have less happy anecdotes to share, but over 18 years’ experience as a business shipper has to count for something.

Mine was a family of letter writers, as I’ve written here before, a family for whom the arrival of the mail was the high point of every day. Going to the post office once a week to pick up mail from a special box, my father’s job as officer in some organization at the time, and to send out letters and packages was such a special treat that my sisters and I had to take turns. The sound of the metal mailbox lid (Clink!) beside the front porch door, the impressive way my little footsteps echoed on the marble floor of the downtown post office, the beauty and variety of postage stamps and the possibility (remote back then) that something very special might come in the mail for me was all part of the thrill. My father smoked an occasional pipe, you see, and every year as a girl he and I solemnly entered the Kentucky Club contest. The prize was a racehorse, and to enter we sent in empty tobacco wrappers and a form with the name we would give the horse. Who knew? A girl could dream, and maybe one year....

We never won the racehorse, but I never lost those early feelings of pleasure I associate with the U.S. mail. The time it takes, the non-instantaneous aspect of the mail, the anticipation, is part of what makes it delicious, although through the course of history the time lag between a letter leaving one place and arriving at its destination has progressively shortened. Recently I sent a small package to Australia, imagining it might take months to arrive. How delightful to hear that the book and newspaper were only about a week and a half in transit—and now my new Australian friend has put something in the mail to me! I am so excited!


Last week the mail brought me a letter from a local friend spending the winter out West, a valentine from old graduate school pals, a mystery package of treats from the U.P., and a thank-you note from another friend right here in Leelanau. Pleasure, pleasure, pleasure!


Stamps are still beautiful, and while the price has gone up I maintain it is still a howling bargain—compared to prices of postage in other countries, compared to slow mail delivery in other countries, and given the lasting pleasure and treasure one lightweight stamped envelope carries with it.


Last year my mother sent me a package containing letters and postcards my father had written her when I was a baby in South Dakota. That’s another thing that makes it delicious: the enjoyment of reading one’s mail can be repeated, if desired, for a lifetime. Of how many pleasures can that be said?


Here are a couple of ideas. One is to make a commitment—yes, I’ll step up first in line—to mail a note or letter to someone you love at least once a week (different someones okay) from now to Memorial Day. The other idea, an additional option, is to mail a book to someone you love once a month in March, April and May.

Note that books can go “media mail,” the new name for the old “book rate” (thank Benjamin Franklin, too, every time you mail a book), but please, if you include a letter or note, don’t cheat! Personal messages included with books mean the whole package needs first-class postage. Sometimes I send the letter and the book separately. Other times I figure it’s worth the extra cost to tuck that letter inside the book. It’s still a bargain when you imagine the joy on the recipient’s face.

Mail at least one letter a week from now to Memorial Day. Optional: Mail a book once a month from now to Memorial Day. That’s my personal commitment this season and my challenge to you.

Finally, thanks to Gerry Sell for prompting this commitment and challenge.